Liam Dann: Flatulence tax row went on too long

COMMENT

With all the hot air being emitted by those on both sides of the flatulence tax debate, it looked for a while as if finding a compromise was as likely as French farmers suddenly calling for an end to trade barriers.

But when the first hint of a solution to this whole debacle emerged last week it was anything but a miracle.

The only really remarkable thing about the Government's decision - to listen to the industry scientists already doing research into methane emissions - is that it took so long to reach.

Last week Environment Minister Pete Hodgson conceded (and he is adamant that it is not a backdown) that there might be some areas of research outlined in the O'Hara report which were already covered by the industry's Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium.

Dr Peter O'Hara's independent report that said $8.4 million was needed to finance new emissions research was put together last year.

The consortium - backed by Fonterra, Meat NZ, Wrightson, DeerResearch and AgResearch - is just over a year old.

Since the Government announced the new levy in June, consortium members have argued the O'Hara report didn't recognise key research that has been set up this year.

But rather than engaging with a group of like-minded scientists, the Government has spent three masochistic months banging its head against a brick wall called Federated Farmers.

In the process it has done huge damage to the goodwill it had in rural communities.

The aggression with which Federated Farmers raised the call to arms was inevitable, given the growing list of gripes the organisation had been compiling about the Government.

Federated Farmers president Tom Lambie makes no secret that the levy was the straw that broke the camel's back.

And then there is the sizeable percentage of farmers who will never see the Government's view because they simply do not accept that global warming is a reality.

The Government, having committed itself to the Kyoto Protocol, won't accept their opinion but it is one those farmers are entitled to.

Far from having closed minds, many have taken to the internet and done their own investigations of the science surrounding the issue.

Sure, the majority of scientists believe global warming is very real but there are others who disagree.

Farmers can also point to the small matter of the refusal by the United States to ratify Kyoto - for much the same reasons as they put forward.

Only history will determine who is right and who is wrong, but for now the gulf between the two groups is hardly worth trying to bridge.

So the debate broke down into an unconstructive and repetitive chorus of "this is all rubbish and we won't pay" from one side, and "you're all wrong and you will pay" from the other.

The good arguments got lost in noise. That's a shame because there were a couple on both sides. The Government had one argument that avoided even the thorny issue of whether global warming is real.

Real or not, addressing global warming is about to become big business as those countries that have agreed to Kyoto struggle to meet its demands.

New Zealand is a world leader in agricultural science and it may be that for a small investment we can develop ways to reduce animal methane emissions that will pay for themselves. It could be very lucrative for farmers to own that intellectual property.

The other argument is the one that has made some headway last week. If the consortium can prove it is already doing a lot of the required research, a far smaller sum than $8.4 million may be required to meet the demands of the O'Hara report.

If that is so, it may even be possible for industry groups to fund the difference without any extra levy on farmers, consortium chairman Mark Leslie said last week.

Suddenly it seems we could have a win-win solution. Was it really so hard?